Advantages and disadvantages of being an "only"?

[Meandacat]

So pleased to have found this section...

DD is now 11 months and family as asking when we'll have another. DD came as a great surprise and is the apple of our eye, but I'm not sure I want another. I was never maternal to start with, and would not have bothered if DH and I had remained childless (beyond wondering what we were missing), and even expected that, having not fallen pregnant til I was 39. We absolutely adore DD, but I do feel we could be content with her alone.

However, I have niggling doubts. I have a friend who is an only, and who now is faced with sole responsibility for her elderly (and very trying) mother. I also have a much older and very disabled mum, and I can see how my sisters and I rely on eachother to help her. I know we can never tell how the future will go, but it bothers me that I may one day be a burden on my DD.

Secondly, she is a very social wee thing and I don't want her to miss out or be bored at home. I mentioned I had sisters - they are all 18-21 years older than me so I was essentially brought up alone with my mum. I am very much a loner who does not make friends easily and I wonder how much that was caused by getting very used to entertaining myself as a child. (Although I was also bullied by those so-called friends I did have, so I guess that played a part :( ).

Anyway, sorry for ramble. I wondered what people thought were the advantages and disadvantages of being an only? Maybe it'll help me see things more clearly.

I'm an only child, so is my daughter. I loved being an only and she tells me she does too. She is confident, outgoing, sociable and makes friends easily. She says she likes it because she gets to do more than her friends - holidays, new clubs etc.

Like your friend my elderly Mum is on her own and I keep an eye on her - but she is very, very independent. If it comes to it I'll look after her because she looked after me as a kid and I love her.

My DH is one of 4. He would have liked more kids but says it is so much more peaceful in our family and he doesn't miss the arguments. He doesn't see or speak to his siblings very much. When the crunch comes with his parents we will no doubt be the ones who end up looking after them.

I think there's a lot you can do to mitigate against being a burden to your only. Make sure you put away sufficient savings over the years to ensure you're not a financial burden. Move into one of those self-contained retirement flats in a complex linked to a nursing home at an early age, thus no worries for your child about maintenance, security, loneliness, falls etc. As you get more and more decrepited (sp?!) you can buy-in the care you need, with a smooth planned transition to the complex's nursing home when required.

In my experience, much of the burden of elderly parents comes through their reluctance to move into suitable accommodation at an early enough age. They insist on staying in the unsuitable family home, as they (understandably) can't face the upheaval of moving/making new friends etc leaving them unable to maintain their property, vulnerable to falls, and reluctant to allow outside agencies to provide the help they need.

Hi

I share your feelings and thoughts exactly Meandacat. Ds is now 3.5 and we've made the decision not to have any more but the niggles do come up occasionally.

I have a brother who I love dearly but to be honest he is a bit hopeless and I'm sure as my mom gets older her care may well fall to me rather than my brother, as it did to her with her mother.

I've got my head round the fact that having a sibling doesn't guarantee you friendship, support or even remaining in contact (in some of the extreme cases I know of) I class my closest friends as much of a support in life as family and I only hope that ds is as lucky finding friends that will extend his family for him.

I think you have outlined some of the disadvantages quite well in your OP, but as others have said, there are advantages too.

I am an only - and have an only DD. My mum was an only as well! I wouldn't mind having another, but do not feel that strongly about it, and my DH comes from a large family that caused him nothing but upset growing up, so is keen to have one and be able to look after and finance that child well. (BTW that is not implying that people with more than one dont do that BTW - just that DHs experience of a big family was tinged with poverty and neglect.)

I have actually found that I (and so far) DD are both v sociable individuals because we enjoy being around people after being at home by ourselves. I also love my own company, and am a voracious reader (and was from an early age) because a good book went you never felt lonely.

We are saving for DD and hope that she will not have any undue financial strain involved in looking after us. There will inevitably be some element of responibility as we get older - I am in the early stages of feeling that for my mum and dad. My parents though have always worked hard to stop me feeling 'smothered' and from the age of 16 I lived away from home, went to a uni that was a long distance from home, and joined the military and travelled.

Thanks everyone that's replied so far.

Llanarth - you speak so much sense! Food for thought and this is something that I'll definitely give my attention to from here on.

notymummy - what you say about your DH made me think about my own DH and his relationship with his brother. As you say, nothing but grief! So yeah, maybe siblings aren't always what they're cracked up to be.

There have been a lot of threads on this theme - have you seen them?

I understand your concern about being a burden on your daughter in old age but, as has been said, you can do things to offset that. And please don't assume that siblings would necessarily help her out. It's great that you can share caring for your mum with your sisters but, sadly, I know of plenty of instances where siblings cannot or will not get involved, leaving all the caring and organising to one child.

I am an "only" and my DS age 12 is an only too.

I was happy to be an only child and didn't like friends irritating little siblings much at all. Had no idea why anyone would have wanted a sibling.

DS does have a different attitude and does want company, but I think, struggles socially, so can be a bit of a "show off" to keep peoples attention and to find his place in the pecking order.

Having moved in with my partner and his 4 children, I can tell you right now that having an only is hundreds of times easier than having 5. The arguing, squabbling, deceit, sheer hard work, cost, inability to spread yourself so thinly are in my opinion, not worth it. Maybe I would feel differently if they were all my own by birth, but I really feel that they all miss out on something because you simply cannot parent 5 kids anywhere near as effectively as one.

I can't think of one disadvantage of having an only. I am one of 4 and, like OP, am a bit of a loner. My DD (6) is more gregarious but whilst she enjoys her outside activities and friends she craves time with DH and me. She's not allowed to be bored - the word is banned from our vocabulary

surely one disadvantage is society's perception of what an only child is and how other people view them because of it? we as parents of onlies can do as much as we can to bring them up strong, confident, gregarious and completely happy with their status only to come across people who perceive them in a certain way because they don't have siblings?

I'm an only and I have 2 ds's.

I don't really know how I feel about being an only because I've never been anything else! I sort of worry about having to look after elderly parents, but I've lived 2 hours plus away from them since I was 19, and as they had me when they were really young it's a problem I hopefully won't have to face for a good few years.

To put that in perspective, my dad keeps an eye on his parents who are in their 90's. He has a sister but she lives 200 miles away so is no help on a day to day basis. My mum is one of 6 and refuses to have anything to do with any of her brothers and sisters.

I look at my ds's now and see how they play together and it's lovely, then they fall out and start fighting and I wonder if I'd be more assertive and less of a loner if I'd have had siblings. But as other posters have mentioned, sometimes you can feel the same coming from a big family.

Not sure if that helps really!

I am an only and both my parents are. There are loads of aspects that could be covered but I'll just stick this one down as I came across it quite recently (think it was either on here or poss the Guardian). It's a disadvantage: if you are an only then when you are older you don't have anyone, ie sibling/s, to remember you & your family life when you were a child. This really hit me actually as it is quite true of course & to me it sounds very sad. I can't avoid this for myself but do not want it for my son.

Problem is, elvis, that siblings often remember the past differently. I was chatting to my brother about our, sadly, long dead parents and db said what an unhappy marriage they had. I was as that's not how I remember things. And my sister has a very distorted view of the past. So it's not a matter of bereaved siblings sitting around saying "aw d'you remember when mum and dad took us blackberrying and dad rescused that kitten stuck up a tree and then we all made lemonade and played scrabble".

I was a lonely only ( sounds like Roy Orbison song ) but I can see now looking back that my parents didn't help much. we lived on a council estate miles from anywhere, so there was a small friend pool, and most of the kids near me were lads from large rough scary families. My Mum could not drive and there were two buses a day. Dad was always at work, and then would not drive anywhere after 9pm. So I was stuck in this quiet house with both parents working full time and no mates near me apart from the joy riding type.

I would advise that you really allow your only child access to other children and enable them to have friends round to play. Also team sports was always nice, i ended up being the netball and hockey captain at school because I loved it so much being part of a team

I now have 3 kids under 4 which I planned, I think I am trying to create the family environment that I craved as a child